There’s routine cases of institutional actors like teachers and their unions trying to groom kids into being “trans”, without talking to the parents.
Counter culture is saying that you’re not allowed to do that — eg, that drag queen story time is a bad idea.
That's not happening except in the fevered minds of the far-right. Get a grip.
It's nothing but a moral panic we've seen again and again (in the 60s hippies, 70s punks, 80s goths and Satanists, then gay people, now furries and trans people - all coming for your kids)
Meanwhile we endlessly discover Catholics, Southern Baptists and other sects have actually systemically covered up child abuse by their leaders across the US. But you don't see anyone warning you against bringing your kid to church.
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Can you cite more than one example when and where this has happened?
https://mobile.twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1618271512158...
And that's just within the past two weeks.
There are a great many subcultures that would like legal boundaries shifted, and when they care enough they become interest groups participating in the democratic process.
Even the blandest bland blandy that ever blanded is not going to agree with all the laws and societal boundaries being set exactly the way they are. Either that means there's no such thing as a mainstream culture, or we have to understand noisy clashes between subcultures don't make one or the other a counter culture.
I think the way we're discussing that something obviously SUBculture is being confused for a COUNTERculture is an argument in OPs favor that we don't have much (highly visible) counterculture right now.
A counterculture is in the face of the mainstream culture, trying to change the cult. It is countering the mainstream. It is activist or, at the least, unabashed with the intention of normalization.
white men have to apologize for the color that they were born?
Being an unapologetic white male would imply that you felt like you could give your opinion freely without having someone immediately attack it as invalid because of your race and gender.
But I guarantee that every time a term like this gets used, the replies will imply that anyone identifying as an unapologetic white male is in fact racist.
It's a great demonstration of how the counter culture has in fact become culture. Anybody who really doubts this probably doesn't have kids or spend much time around younger adults.
The 30 under 30 sure doesn't look like what you suggest, and I'm not sure where else you'd look for a list of examples
So if you get downvotes, it may be because you made a bad argument, not just because you come off as having an axe to grind.
In fact, I do lump them onto one group. Many subgroups inside a group. You know who I am referring to when I say queer culture. The group exists, it isn't false. Colors keep getting added to the flag. Rather than engage with reality you prefer to have useless rhetorical debates. Let's move past that.
>Second, you assert that being in the overwhelmingly dominant racial group, the overwhelmingly dominant sexual orientation and the undeniably dominant gender should somehow be interpreted at "counterculture" even though the group that fits that definition is numerically larger, wealthier, and politically empowered than any other group.
Culture is often not aligned with majority opinions, majority positions or majority orientations. The culture of the 60s was hippies. Most people were not hippies. Your premise is false here that culture is the same as majority, or political empowerment.
I welcome a more honest response.
In fact, many queer people force themselves out of the community by living within the norm to feel more acceptance from the majority (counter-counter culture).
Your perception is also obviously very specific to where you live on this planet.
The same thing goes for anything that could be described as "queer culture". Plenty of queer people have, and want, nothing to do with the groups and spaces that present themselves as "the community".
Sure, the hippie movement was branded countercultural. But to what purpose? Note that during the period, the US government was engaged in a large scale remaking of America both domestically and internationally. Domestically, we saw the remaking of immigration policies to no longer bias towards those of European descent, and instead towards what favored macro capitalism (the import of cheaper and low skilled labor). Internationally the US was scaling up engagement in hot and cold wars and no longer considering itself bound to the constitutional provisions for war. Low and behold, during this period, a "counterculture" arises which glorifies drug use, the dissolution of the nuclear family and pushes forward the vapid strain of hyper individualism that we see today. Suddenly the anti-war movement is associated with drug use and degeneracy, whilst the nation's racial consciousness is broken in time to welcome a new wave of immigrants to help improve the margins of big business.
Note that the current "woke" counterculture follows the same pattern. Increased individualism, sublimated racial awareness, dissolution of family, and rampant degeneracy. Meanwhile the state continues its hegemonic march of constant international agitation.
The (US) culture of the 60s was nuclear families, medium haircuts, fitted suits, and the Space Race.
The counterculture was hippies, mop-topped youngsters, and civil rights activists.
Your closing line is laughable.
There is no "mainstream" culture anymore to counter. Everyone is living in their own little cultural bubble that they believe to be a counterculture to a non-existent mainstream culture.
The hysterical thing is the OP said what they said exactly because everyone knows someone would respond with your exact rhetorical devices like an automaton or a bot.
Pretty sure one of the canonized characteristics of post-modernity (or the post-cold war era if you dont like pretentious art terms) is pluralism.
This spicy thread seems to reinforce the feeling that the dominant culture has (and maybe always was) some horrifying unknowable ever-changing organic mass of competing counter-cultures.
Paraphrasing some dead social philosopher, history and cultures aren't bedtime stories or cartoon characters and we create dangerous false narratives, policies and hierarchies when we indulge the impulse to reduce them into these.
Obviously cultural norms change over time, and many ideas that were once fringe are now mainstream. But that doesn't mean that the majority white, straight, Christian(ish) majority in America doesn't still wield most of the power.
yeah, except for finance, media, academia and politics. I do agree that straight white christian(ish) males do wield the most power in the other intuitions that matter (thought I'm drawing a blank on which those might be).
But those are dominated by straight white men. A simple demographic survey of Congress and org executives will show that. What are you talking about?
To people even know that the US ethnic group with highest average income is Indian Americans?
Because there is no one majority group. The only way you get a majority group is by drawing dumb lines around non-adjacent cultural groups because they happen to be of the same economic means or vote the same way.
The WASPy power structure is still dominant in the corporate landscape and disproportionately high in the political one. But it has been losing ground on the cultural front for a while now.
There's a reason WASPy individuals complain about "the culture war" - it's the one they are losing. The slogan, "get woke, go broke" suggests they have started losing ground on the corporate front as well.
Great explanation. Very proper. Much explanation. Thanks for the example /s
Arguments you cant argue against are not a “dishonest script” what does that even mean? Just give an example of what you say Republicans do a good job of.
For the benefit of other readers though, I'll bite.
For instance, former congressman for Iowa Steve King tweeting about slavery [0] is pretty explicit. How about the slightly more abstruse but still pretty glaring white supremacist dog whistle [1] in response to a random Dutch guy complaining about muslims. He was in congress 2003-2021.
Of course Great Replacement rhetoric is also pushed pretty openly to rally white voters, with Tucker Carlson saying things like "demographic change is the key to the Democratic Party’s political ambitions", and congresswoman for New York Elise Stefanik running ads saying "[Democrats'] plan to grant amnesty to 11 MILLION illegal immigrants will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington".
Do you accept these examples or do you need the GOP leadership to issue a letter signed by all party members stating they like white people?
[0] https://twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/1612505990305308672?s... [1] https://twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/1614259933469462528?s...
Because why do they have to dog whistle about it? Why do they have to resort to subtlety at all?
It's forbidden from public discourse to such an extent that can only be found between the lines, hidden in vague allusions, or more likely, asserted as baseless accusations slandering conservative politicians, while the GOP explicitly tries everything it can to promote their non-white figures.
They try to promote their non-white figures because their agenda and campaigning for the most part is so overwhelmingly targeted toward white voters that they have horrible reach into other demographics.
This is like the Black Lives Matter vs All Lives Matter debacle. Minorities are brought into the spotlight because there are systems and large groups of people actively working against them. Meanwhile, you don't need to "promote" whiteness, because that's seen as the default in America.
But why? If this is really the majority sentiment, why on earth leave any room for plausible deniability?
> their agenda and campaigning for the most part is so overwhelmingly targeted toward white voters that they have horrible reach into other demographics.
Not really, though. Voting levels are low enough that they could conceivably focus their energies simply on getting more non-voting whites to vote.
If you read the comment you're replying to, it answers that question immediately.
> Not really, though. Voting levels are low enough that they could conceivably focus their energies simply on getting more non-voting whites to vote.
They could, but their agenda fits white people better, for reasons that are evident to anyone with critical thinking skills. Hint: think about the dog-whistling some more.
Culture is what's uncontroversially and fearlessly blasted on front pages, and on mainstream TV.
> They could, but their agenda fits white people better, for reasons that are evident to anyone with critical thinking skills.
Evidently the millions of non-white Republicans, and the millions of white Democrats, all lack these critical thinking skills, then.
> Culture is what's uncontroversially and fearlessly blasted on front pages, and on mainstream TV.
My comments on dog-whistling were specifically targeted toward the one commenter talking about how politicians don't seem to care about white people.
If you want to go back to the broader discussion, on culture, then yes I agree. And what is blasted on front pages and mainstream TV is overwhelmingly white, with tiny pockets dedicated to other groups. To say that "whiteness" is a counterculture is absurd.
As an aside:
> the millions of white Democrats
The Democrat agenda also fits white people better than non-white people, though they make more effort than Republicans to acknowledge minorities.
As for why non-white Republicans vote that way, maybe they miss the dog-whistles, or maybe they think the racism of the party isn't directed at them (e.g., since they're "one of the good ones") or that it's outweighed by other factors (i.e., they hate taxes), or maybe they think the Republicans are the better of two evils. Not really relevant, since they aren't in this discussion. Do you have the critical thinking skills?
Are you saying that stupid people "think" it's the same, which is why they exhibit poor behavior?
Anybody could be in power at any given time. If your argument for why your group should be in power depends on who is currently in power then it isn’t valid because it stops being true as soon as you win. No idea what you are saying about stupid people.
> my argument [“Advocating for those in power”] has nothing to do with who should be in power
Saying what kinds of arguments are acceptable in support of the group in power has a lot to do with who should be in power.
Parent comment was stating that people who support the minority are using the same fallacious reasoning those who support the majority do and that is not true.
In the event the power changes, the people who supported the previous majority class might be the same or use the same reasoning but that has nothing to do with how both groups reason separately.
As an example, imagine it's The Great Depression, The Majority would say something like "Wow I really wish we had more food, I'm going to vote for this candidate who says that we'll get more food". In this instance the Majority is not tied to the ruling class, do you see how implying everyone is knee-jerk reacting is misleading?
Whites are nowhere close to being the wealthiest group in the US.
And yet, it's remarkably unpopular to announce the simple truism that "white lives matter", or that "it's ok to be white", and our top universities interrogate "whiteness" as problematic, so evidently much further nuance is required between numerical size and cultural sway.
I think there's a valid point lurking there, but you botched it. Surely you appreciate that multiple things can be true at the same time, and there are numerous ways that white men have advantages still.
Why is it okay for one side to be angry, but not the other? This is such a commonly used accusation to deflate someone else's point. Making them seem emotional, and therefore illogical.
FWIW, I don't think the person you're replying to looks even a little bit angry in that post. The point of view seems well considered.
If you think he sounds neutral, unaffected, rational, I wonder if it's just that you already agree with him.
It's also pretty absurd on its face to believe the straight white male is persecuted. I don't believe you need me to refute it.
Oh come on, that is not their main goal. Its all a scam to cover up things like unchecked military spending/war, unchecked government corruption at the corporate level among many other things.
There is a reason why this meme continues to float around the web.
I nominate being an unapologetic white male as the counter culture of our current time. Just watch how many downvotes you'll get on any social media platform for having this position.